


Better Demons

by farad



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:51:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Daybook Prompt "Ezra/any, any, sometimes Ezra doesn't understand his own dark urges."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Demons

**Author's Note:**

> An experiment to see if I could write something short. It's - well, at least finished in one sitting. Un-betaed, all mistakes my own, comments (constructive) very welcome.
> 
> Inspired in part by something Cycnus said about the scene between Vin and Ezra in "Lady Killers"

The first thing Ezra was aware of was Nathan's voice, low and tight. "Don't try to move. It's not bad, but you're bleeding like a stuck pig."

As was his nature, and despite his own learned trust in Nathan's advice, Ezra thought about sitting up – he was, he realized, laying on the ground, never a good thing for his clothes. It was then that the pain erupted, engulfing him in waves of nausea and fire. 

"Told you," Nathan's voice drifted through the clouds. "Don't try to move." 

This time, the little voice of reason was louder but no more successful against his rebellious nature, which, when he thought about it later, was probably a good thing. Trying to sit up made him pass out. 

&^&^&^&^&

"You're in Nathan's clinic," Josiah said calmly. "He stepped out for some dinner. Here." He held a tin cup to Ezra's lips.

Water. It was warm but Ezra drank it as quickly as it rolled off the cusp of the mug onto his lips.

"Whoa, now," Josiah said, pulling the cup up to stop the steady stream. "Not too much, or you'll be sick."

The words had the opposite effect; Ezra lifted one hand, catching Josiah's wrist and forcing the mug back down. He swallowed greedily until Josiah managed to pull away, splattering the bedclothes. 

"Not so fast!" he said, putting the mug aside and rising from the bed to find a towel. "There's a reason you're not supposed to do that."

Ezra was already realizing that reason, however. His stomach heaved, rebelling, and instinctively he turned, looking for a bowl. The movement exacerbated the nausea, however, reminding him of the wound. He was barely aware of making a noise, of Josiah coming back to his side and holding out a metal pan. Regurgitation was excruciating, and when it was over, he lay back in the pillows, his arm throbbing, his head pounding, and his mouth once more dry as the desert air. 

Josiah sighed, shaking his head. "You just can't help yourself, can you. Though you'd think, after what got you this way, you'd pay a little more heed to the warnings."

Ezra closed his eyes, ignoring the other man. 

&^&^&^&^&^&

"Whoo whee, hoss, you have got to be the luckiest man alive! How you feeling?" Buck ambled into Nathan's clinic, dropping into the chair beside the bed. His grin grew broader and his mustache started to twitch as he watched Ezra trying to get his shirt on over the bandage on his shoulder.

"A mere scratch," Ezra said, or tried to. It came out more as a grunt as he struggled to get his arm in the sleeve. 

"That's why you're damned lucky. Reckon there ain't many men who have faced down an angry Vin Tanner and walked away from it." He chuckled. 

Ezra managed to get the shirt on which allowed him the chance to rest for a time. And to martial his thoughts. "Mr. Tanner needs to learn some self-control. Civilized men do not go around shooting each other because of a little teasing."

Buck's chuckling stopped, the silence going on long enough for Ezra to look at him. Buck was staring back at him, his big eyes even wider and his mouth open. It was an amusing image, and Ezra was ready to observe that when Buck finally found words. "You're probably right about 'civilized' men – reckon you know more about that than most of the rest of us. But I can tell you that a smart man don't go round poking a bear when he's been warned against it. More than once. Hell, Ezra, you stick sticks in hornets' nests, too?"

"Of course not," he said, making the effort to button up the shirt. "Hornet's have no sense of humor. And apparently neither does Mr. Tanner." He was aware of Buck shaking his head, but he ignored it. "Might I assume that Mr. Larabee is keeping a close eye on him?"

"Vin? Well, I guess. They're out at his place. Whatever you did opened up Vin's stitches and he was bleeding 'bout as much as you." He stretched out his legs and cross them at the ankles, getting comfortable. 

"Perhaps it was his own stupidity," Ezra said, cursing as the button slipped out of his sluggish fingers instead of going through the button hole. "He did pull out his gun and fire it. I can't imagine that that was good for his stitches."

"Well, 'cept that his stitches were on the other side, the side that you grabbed and pulled on," Buck countered. "You know, like you did a couple of times earlier, though both Vin and Nathan told you to stop."

"I assure you, had they told me to stop, I most certainly would have. I am not given to doing things that are injurious." He just managed to get the button through the hold, but he had to stop again, as his arm was throbbing and his fingers were tired. 

"Ah, yeah," Buck agreed, though it was clear from his tone of voice that he didn't. "You want some help with that?"

He didn't, he could do it himself. But it might take the rest of the day, and he wanted desperately to be out of here, back in his own room with his own things. Back where he felt safe. With a sigh, he nodded. "That would be most considerate of you."

"Well, that's me," Buck grinned, sitting up and leaning forward, reaching out to button Ezra's shirt. "Probably part of why Vin didn't shoot me – hell, maybe part of why Chris ain't shot me yet."

"So Mr. Larabee has taken our hothead out to his ranch?" The words were like acid on his tongue.

"Yep, said he reckoned that was the only way to make sure you didn't do something else stupid."

"Me?" Ezra stared at Buck, or, more aptly, at the top of his head, as Buck was still bent, working the shirt buttons into place. "I do not believe that I was the one who shot one of my fellow peacekeepers for no reason!"

Buck got to the top button, the one at Ezra's collar. As he slid the button home, he glanced up, his gaze catching Ezra's. "You really gonna stick to that story, that you don't remember Vin warning you? 'Cause if you are, you might need to have your hearing checked. Ain't a one of us who didn't hear him tell you to stop or he was gonna shoot you, and between all of us, we know he said it at least three times."

Ezra stared at him. "Surely you jest. You could not have taken those warnings seriously. No sane man would seriously intend to shoot someone for a simple joke."

Buck drew in a deep breath and sat back in his chair. "It hurt when you move your arm?" he asked slowly. 

"Well of course it does," Ezra retorted. "I was shot. By a mean-tempered hothead, I might add, who I thought was a friend."

Buck nodded distractedly but went on. "If I pulled on your arm, do you think it might hurt?"

Ezra drew in a breath, barely catching the sharp words on the tip of his tongue. Instead, after a few seconds of deliberation, he said, "I would depend on why you were pulling on it. If it were in jest, as a tease, then it might hurt a little but not a lot."

"So," Buck frowned, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he thought, "I could pull on it with the same strength two times, but my intentions would make it hurt more or less than the actual pulling?"

Ezra shook his head, pushing himself up from the bed, then, when his legs gave way, falling back to it. As he tried again, ignoring the hand that Buck held out to help him, he said, "That is most certainly not what I said. That's ludicrous."

"Well, if you mean it don't make sense, I agree. But it is what you said." Buck drew his hand away but he kept it up, hanging in the air, as Ezra staggered toward the upright chair against the wall that held the rest of his clean clothes. 

"I cannot believe," Ezra said, putting his hand out and bracing it on the chair as he caught his breath, "that Mr. Larabee is rewarding Mr. Tanner by caring for him at his abode. Surely he can see that this was an over-reaction, that Mr. Tanner needs some sort of lesson in control."

Buck made a sound that Ezra didn't identify, but when he turned to look over his shoulder at the other man, Buck had his hand in front of his mouth, as if he were coughing. After he cleared his throat, Buck said, "I suspect Vin is sorry that he shot you, though I reckon he might eventually be sorry he didn't do a better job of it."

"That, sir, is unkind," Ezra shot back, annoyed. So annoyed, in fact, that he reached for his vest with his bad arm. As the pain shot through him, he was sorry he didn't have his own gun on, so that he could shoot someone.

*&*&*&*&*&

"Here, let me get that for you, Ezra." JD was at his side, taking the bottle of whiskey and the glass and then putting his hand on Ezra's elbow, as if Ezra were a doddering old person who couldn't make it to the table. 

"I am quite capable of taking care of myself, JD," he said shortly, trying to draw away from JD.

"Unless you try to tell him when not to do something," Nathan said loudly from where he sat on the other side of the table. 

"Maybe that's the secret," Buck said, grinning. "Tell him not to do what you want him to do."

"Perhaps," Ezra countered, catching the back of his chair and holding onto it, "leaving me to make my own judgements would be the better course of action."

"Because it's worked so well, so far," Nathan said dryly. 

Ezra glared at him, but it was taking most of his attention to sit down. 

"Leave him be," Josiah said mildy. "One learns best when one learns from mistakes."

"As long as one realizes it was a mistake," Buck added as he reached out and took the bottle from JD.

"Hey, now, that's Ezra's," JD said, trying to get it back. 

"Thank you, JD, at least you are a gentleman, not one of these heathens who thinks that Mr. Tanner was justified in his atrocious behavior." Ezra sat back in his chair, finally, catching his breath. He started to reach for the glass of whiskey Buck set in front of him, but he stopped, cautious of the pain. 

"Well, don't know about all that," JD said, dropping into a chair between Ezra and Buck, "but I do know that that was pretty brave of you, to keep picking on Vin after he warned you to stop. How'd you know he wasn't gonna kill you?"

Buck snorted and Nathan laughed out right, while Josiah merely smiled and shook his head. 

"What?" JD asked, looking around the table, until his gaze came back to rest on Ezra. 

Ezra glared at the others. "Rest assured, JD, had I been aware that Mr. Tanner was such a savage, I would never have teased him."

JD blinked, his mouth working but no sound coming out. Eventually, he said, "But you had to know. Don't you always say that you don't leave nothing to chance?"

"Oh, he does, he says that a lot," Buck agreed cheerfully. "But Ezra don't always know when he's taking a chance."

JD turned on the other man. "That's plum wrong, Buck. Ezra knew he was taking a chance – how many times did Vin tell him to quit? I know I heard it at least twice."

"Yes," Josiah said, leaning back in his chair, "but Ezra seems not to appreciate Vin's sincerity."

JD frowned. "You mean, he didn't take Vin seriously?"

Ezra found his voice. "He was joking," he said flatly. "If I had believed for one moment that he was sincere in his threat - "

"Ezra." JD stared at him, his brown eyes wide with disbelief. "You thought Vin was – how could you think Vin was - "

"I thought Mr. Tanner was a civilized man," Ezra said sharply, tired of this conversation. Tired of having to defend himself.

Tired of thinking about Vin Tanner out there with Chris, being rewarded for his unacceptable behavior with Chris' undivided attention. In Chris' small shack. Alone. 

"Well," JD said uncertainly, "I don't know about civilized, but he is a man of his word, and he promised more than once that if you didn't stop hurting him, he was gonna stop you. And he did."

Ezra had finally picked up his glass, getting it halfway to his mouth, but at JD's last words, he slammed the glass back down on the table. The others stilled, looking at him, and no one was smiling. "I assure you," he said, pushing himself up with considerable effort, "that I will not make the mistake of trusting in anyone's good nature again."

To their credit, none of them rose to help him as he stumbled his way to the staircase, then made his way labouriously up the stairs to his room. 

&^&^&^&^&^&^

"Buck tells me that shot didn't knock any sense into you." Chris stepped into Ezra's room, closing the door behind him. He ignored the gun that Ezra held pointed at him, ignored the fact that Ezra had told him to go away, that he wasn't interesting in visitors. 

For an instant, Ezra thought about shooting him, retaliating for the injustice of it all, for the fact that everyone seemed so certain that Vin Tanner had been within his rights to behave so wretchedly, that Ezra had ignored some secret signs that all the rest of them had seen. 

For the fact that he had been the one who was injured, with intent, yet Chris had chosen to care for Vin, even taking him to the privacy of his home, where they had spent days together, doing who knew what, while Ezra had been here, abused and maligned by these men who purported themselves to be friends. 

"Put down the damned gun, Ezra," Chris said sternly, taking off his hat and dropping it on the dresser. "Think we've had enough shooting amongst ourselves." He pushed out of his black duster, draping it over the highback chair beside the bed. "How bad you hurting?"

Reluctantly, Ezra let the hammer down gently on the revolver then laid it on the bedside table. "That man is a barbarian. Yet you all seem to take his side, as if I am the one who wronged him."

Chris stepped over in front of Ezra, his hands on his thin hips. "You kept pushing at him, and he warned you, more than once. You didn't listen to him, Ezra, because you didn't want to hear him." One of his hands moved slowly, off his hip and toward Ezra. Ezra turned away from it, though he didn't move away from the touch of the calloused fingertips as they brushed along his forehead, into his hair. 

"He slept in the barn," Chris said, his voice low. "He wouldn't take my bed, even when I promised to sleep in the barn. He's a friend, Ezra, a damned good one, but he ain't sharing my bed, not even when I'm not in it."

For the first time in a very long while, something in Ezra eased. He closed his eyes, enjoying the gentle strokes through his hair, then even more, the soft lips pressing along his lips and cheeks, and eventually his throat. 

"Just relax and let me do the work," Chris murmured at one point, as he guided Ezra onto his back on the bed. "No need to irritate that wound."

Neither one of them could come up with a good explanation to give Nathan the next morning, when the bandages had to be changed because the bleeding had started again.

&^&^&^&^&^&^&^

"Ezra." Vin nodded, his face expressionless, though his good hand was on the stock of his mare's leg. His bad arm, the one with the knife wound along the shoulder and rib cage, was back in a sling and he stood so that it was turned away from Ezra. He had been sitting at a table in the saloon, along with Chris and Josiah, but when Ezra came through the door, he had stood up and positioned himself so. 

"Easy now," Josiah said, one of his big hands lifted up to Vin. "No call for worry."

"He is quite correct," Ezra said, holding Vin's gaze. Peripherally, he was aware that Chris was still leaning back in his chair, relaxed, his whiskey glass in one hand, his other hand curled loosely on the tabletop. "I bear you no ill will."

Vin studied him for a time then said, "Bullshit."

Chris had been sipping from the glass and he snorted, choked a little on the liquid in his mouth, then coughed. 

Neither Ezra nor Vin looked at him, but there was an easing of the tension in the air between them. 

"Very well," Ezra said after Chris had drawn a few deep breaths, "perhaps I am still a bit put out with you. But I have been informed by many that it was my mistake to not understand that you were not jesting with your threats to shoot me."

Vin arched one long eyebrow. "I don't 'jest'," he drawled, "about shooting people. I ain't playful like Chris."

This time, Ezra did glance at Chris, who glared at Vin.

Across the table, Josiah grinned and said, "Few among us are as playful as Chris."

Chris turned his glare on Josiah and said, "Getting less playful all the damned time."

Remembering what had passed between them yesterday afternoon, Ezra found himself smiling. "Perhaps I have allowed myself to believe that you are more like Mr. Larabee than you truly are. My apologies for not taking you at your word."

Vin blinked a few times, then his hand fell away from his gun and he shifted, turning more directly toward Ezra. "Well, sorry it had to come to be shooting you. But damn, Ezra, all that hitting and grabbing – it hurt like a son of a bitch."

Ezra nodded then looked at his own bound arm. "I find that I am in complete agreement. It does hurt like a son of a bitch." He gestured toward the table. "Might I join you? I find myself unusually tired today."

"Good thing Nathan's not here to hear that," Josiah said as he used one leg to push out the chair closest to Ezra. 

But the question had been for Vin, and it wasn't until Vin nodded his agreement that Ezra moved to settle himself into it. At the same time, Vin eased back into his own chair. He grabbed up the bottle of whiskey and refilled the glass in front of him, then he pushed it toward Ezra. He could only get it to the center of the table, but at that point, Chris took over, moving it within Ezra's easy reach.

"My thanks," Ezra said, lifting the glass with his good hand and saluting Vin before he drank. 

"Sure is a good thing Nathan's not here," Chris said, picking up the point. "He'd tell Ezra to sit his ass down and be still and not do anything to hurt it. Which would then mean that Ezra would have to rush right out and get himself involved in something to open up that wound."

Ezra finished the shot and shook his head at Chris. "Contrary to the current misconceptions about me, I do not behave like a child."

"Oh, no," Josiah agreed, "you are certainly not rebellious. Compliance is your strength."

"Yep," Vin agreed, picking up the bottle itself by the neck. "Reckon you'd follow the best advice we could give, to take it easy and listen to what a man says when he's warning you to stop poking at him."

"I believe, sir, that I have learned that lesson," Ezra said, pushing his empty glass forward as Vin took a swig from the bottle. 

"Good place to start," Josiah said. "Live longer that way."

"Probably have to work our way up to things like getting a good night's sleep," Chris said casually. He cut his eyes to Ezra and Ezra smiled. 

"One change at a time," he said, nodding his thanks as Vin pushed the bottle towards him. "I am barely adjusting to this new idea of taking a man at his word."

As Chris picked up the bottle and refilled his own glass, he said, "Helps to understand that some men mean what they say."

"Except when they don't," Josiah said. 

"Except then," Chris agreed. He refilled Ezra's glass. "Let's hope we don't have any trouble, since we're two men down."

"Oh, I think Vin can still shoot," Ezra said, taking back his glass. "I have it on good authority that I am fortunate that he was not truly aiming."

"Hurt too much," Vin said. "Or maybe not enough, ain't sure. Reckon you'll find out, though. Something'll happen that will surprise you," he said, cutting his eyes at Chris.

Ezra looked between them, saw the look Chris shot back at Vin, then the flash of a grin that they shared. The thought rose in his mind, dark and heavy, that he could push the bottle toward Vin, make him try to catch it with his bad arm, cause him pain - 

His own arm twinged and he caught himself. He blinked and found Vin's eyes on him. As if knowing his mind, Vin nodded. "Good to know when to take a man at his word," he said. "Saves you a lot of unnecessary trouble."

"Honesty is the best policy," Josiah intoned. "And makes for keeping better demons."

"Indeed," Ezra agreed. "I shall work on being more selective about my demons."

He didn't have to look to know that Chris was nodding his head in agreement.


End file.
